Last September, I wrote about Muhammad Yunus and the program he developed to aid the poor. He came up with the idea to give people living poverty small loans which would help jump start their lives.
The Nobel Committee has rewarded Muhammad Yunus by awarding him the Nobel Peace Prize. Yunus’ Grameen Bank has given small loans called microcredit to millions of people. These people didn’t needed hundreds of thousands of dollars to live on. They only needed a small hand up so as to improve their lot in life. Many of these individuals have been able to keep their homes and save family businesses all because of Muhammad Yunus. Last year, 100 million people from 130 countries received these small loans. If you think it is to difficult to bring people out of poverty, keep in mind that the average loan was only $130! Far less than the average American makes in a week.
The Nobel Committee had this to say about Yunus and his dream “Yunus’s long-term vision is to eliminate poverty in the world. That vision cannot be realized by means of microcredit alone. But Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank have shown that, in the continuing effort to achieve it, microcredit must play a major part.”
You can read more about Mohammad Yunus and the good work that he does from this blog entry: http://insearchofthehumanspirit.blogspot.com/2006/09/lifting-people-out-of-poverty.html
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